American Baker in Germany

 Let's face it. Chocolate can be finicky. Anyone who has ever had chocolate seize on them can attest to this. *photo credit: food52.com Now, I don't want to talk about what to do if chocolate seizes. We'll save that for another day. But today I want to discuss how to prevent chocolate from seizing or burning when melting it and how to get it to set up again after it's been melted, also known as tempering. Now, chocolate melts fairly easily. But it doesn't need very high temperatures. It melts by agitation. So, what you want to do when melting chocolate is to apply low heat and stir often. That means that it is easiest to melt chocolate when it is in small pieces. Begin by chopping your bars of chocolate into small pieces. I prefer melting chocolate in a microwave. If you want to melt it over the stove, however, please use a double boiler (also known as bain marie). Melting it directly in a pot over the heat, will be too hot and will likely burn the chocolate. If you...